Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up, and for some reason, you just don’t look right in the morning? You meander into the bathroom, rubbing sleep out of your eye, and at first glance in the mirror you suddenly think to yourself, ‘Holy crap, how’d I not see that my nose is all crooked and my face looks all misshapen and I’m rather unattractive?’

I had a day like that yesterday. I woke up in a decent enough mood, despite only getting about two hours of sleep. As far as I know, I’m not some kind of self-destructive somnambulist (which would be a great name for a band, by the way), so I don’t think I was pummeling myself in my sleep. And then, I had a lovely and indulgent pampering day – I went to lunch with Mike in Tysons Corner, I had my make-up done by a nice lady at the Lancome desk at Nordstrom’s, and I got my hair done by a nice man named Enrique at Elie Elie Salon. But for some reason, as I was staring at myself as hair was being sliced from my head by Enrique, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that my head had managed to change shape and was somehow less appealing than it had been twelve hours before.

At first I thought it was just the crazy make-up the Lancome lady had put on me. She did a nice job and everything, but I just have this thing against eyeliner – it never looks right – so I thought maybe that was it. But when I woke up this morning (again with very little sleep), I still felt like someone messed with my bone structure.

Thankfully, just about fifteen minutes ago, I came crawling up the stairs from the basement after another dose of ‘Dharma & Greg’, and I meandered into the bathroom in my fuzzy bubble pajamas. I flicked on the light switch and, lo and behold, my face was back to normal again. I felt prettier, I felt happier, my lips seemed pinker, and even though I was dreadfully tired, I felt like all was right in the world.

I’m not sure how that happened or why, but am I the only person that has ever happened to? There are days when I swear, I just look terrible, and it’s not even something recognizable. Why? Because *I’m* not recognizable. Even when I smiled yesterday it didn’t look right. Maybe there’s something to that theory of “beauty sleep”, cause I certainly haven’t slept much the past few nights. Perhaps bubble pajamas and stupid sitcoms are another potential cure for lack of beauty rest… Maybe I could get a grant to study that, what do you think? 🙂

UPDATE DEC 18 2004: I take back everything I said about Enrique at the salon. For more info, check out this blog entry.